It’s been seven years since the Denizens, people with elemental powers, were unmasked, and seven years since Roan Harken and Eli Rathgar disappeared into the Brilliant Dark.

Marked by Darklings and Death alike, Saskia is a mechanically minded Mundane, raised by Barton and Phae on daring stories about Roan Harken. But the world Roan left behind is in turmoil. The Darklings now hang in the sky as a threatening black moon, and with the order-maintaining Elemental Task Guard looking to get rid of all Denizens before they rebel, Saskia’s only option is to go into the Brilliant Dark and bring Roan and Eli back.

But nothing is ever that simple.

The Brilliant Dark is the final, thrilling chapter in this series about gods, monsters, and the people who must decide if they’re willing to pay the ultimate price to protect the family they found… in a world that may not be worthy of saving.

S.M. Beiko

“What happened?” I asked the silent gathering, turning momentarily away from the Opal. They all seemed to be waiting. “Where’s Deon?”

“You tell us,” said a Fox nearby. I couldn’t tell which; they were all indistinguishable. And it was less an invitation to tell them anything and more a punishing quip.

“Chaos. Harm. Silence,” answered another for him. “You were a stonebearer. You broke your sacred trust with Deon. You broke her trust with all of us.”

Their voices were strange and harsh — it was difficult to keep track of them. “I didn’t do it on purpose!” I shouted over them. “We were trying to wake Ancient, to open the way to the Brilliant Dark — ”

“Naïve pup,” said another. For a second my heart leapt, and I thought it was Sil. Could she actually be down here? But again, I couldn’t tell who had spoken. They all looked the same.

“The Darklings have slipped their prisons,” volleyed another Fox-voice. “They’re loose in the Uplands. Meanwhile, Deon is gone, the Opal is ruined, and the realms are connected now. Connected as they were never meant to be.”

That one was more than a criticism, pure blame. I glanced up over my shoulder, noticed then that there was a wild split through the Calamity Stone, and that it didn’t shine at all.

I turned back. “Look, Deon herself was behind me on this. On stopping the Darklings. We had done it. We’d won.” Now I was bordering on hysterical, begging myself, as much as them, for it to be true when I knew better.

“Don’t you understand?” This was the Fox closest to my feet; this voice was full of despair. “You cut us off. All of us. The Matriarchs are missing. Not even the Moth Queen can ferry the Denizen dead to their promised homelands. You did this.”

“Lost.” The word echoed around the chamber, barked in uneven, angry, miserable tones. “All is lost.”

The Opal above me made the hairs on my neck bristle, as if it was watching me. I didn’t turn around that time. What the hell were they all expecting me to do now?

“You must finish what you started.”

I froze. The Fox was sitting directly in front of me, surveying me with its burnt-hole eyes. I had definitely recognized that voice.

The shade hadn’t moved but for a step, and in that step the small fox body rose, shifted, grew. It was the shadow of a man, the outlines faint. The other Foxes changed all around me, too, all at once, taking the shapes of the people they’d once been. Details in faces were difficult to discern; they were still just spirit shadows. Their hollow pinprick eyes were still the same, boring into me like they were diamond-studded. But in these forms, they were like insubstantial pillars of smoke.

But this close, I could see the features of this fox shift; the outline of a beard, of a mouth twisted in aggravation. It was the voice I recognized first. Jacob Reinhardt, one of the Foxes from the Conclave of Fire, the one who’d challenged me at every turn — who’d nearly killed me, once. It looked like he hadn’t been so lucky in the intervening weeks since I’d seen him last.

I backed up, tripped, and landed hard beneath the Opal. I looked up in time to see something volleyed at me, and I opened my arms to catch it.

S.M. Beiko is an eclectic writer and artist based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She also works as a freelance editor, illustrator, and graphic designer. Her first novel, The Lake and the Library, was nominated for the Manitoba Book Award for Best First Book as well as the 2014 Aurora Award. The first novel in this series, Scion of the Fox, won the 2018 Copper Cylinder Award.

"A storyline with twists aplenty. The cast is multiracial and multicultural, with Scottish and Japanese lead Saskia, returning supporting characters such as Inuit Natti (who explicitly sees the intersectionalities at play in the new order), and other minor characters; both straight and lesbian romances are represented, and there's a genderqueer character. Highly sophisticated and fully immersive.” — Kirkus Reviews

“In Children of the Bloodlands, Saskia was a child. When The Brilliant Dark begins, she’s seven years older and trying desperately to be wiser, as the fate of her friends, and multiple worlds, rests with her. In this final book of her Realms of Ancient series, Beiko leads Saskia and her readers back and forth in time to tell a story about stories, and the ways in which they destroy, redeem, end, and endure. It’s a thrilling and moving conclusion to a powerful trilogy.” — Caitlin Sweet, author of The Door in the Mountain and The Flame in the Maze

“For those of us in the know, author S.M. Beiko’s imagination and style are a breath of fresh air in a genre of literature that can, at times, seem heavy-handed and laden with tired tropes. With The Brilliant Dark, the author brings her celebrated prairie-goth series to its thrilling end. This final instalment is an incredible achievement — passionate, engaging, and innovative in all the right ways. The Realms of Ancient series is Canada’s answer to Neil Gaiman’s American Gods — an absolute must-have for fans of Canadian science fiction and fantasy literature.” — Charlene Challenger, author of The Voices in Between and The Myth in Distance